In his world, Bradley Manning, a U.S. soldier charged with “illegally downloading [and disseminating] tens of thousands of classified U.S. military and State Department documents, is not a traitor who betrayed his oath, but an American hero deserving of a medal.

And, naturally, Islamist extremists and their apologists throughout the Arab and Muslim world aren’t enemies of progressive thought – and a clear danger to the West – but victims of “extreme violence” at the hands of the US and Israel.

“Every now and then, they reveal the real reason: Iranian nuclear weapons would prevent the US from attacking Iran at will, and that is what is intolerable. The latest person to unwittingly reveal the real reason for viewing an Iranian nuclear capacity as unacceptable was GOP Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the US’s most reliable and bloodthirsty warmongers.”

“They [the Iranians] have two goals: one, regime survival. The best way for the regime surviving, in their mind, is having a nuclear weapon, because when you have a nuclear weapon, nobody attacks you.”

Greenwald then sums up what he believes to be Graham’s argument:

“[Graham believes that] we cannot let Iran acquire nuclear weapons because if they get them, we can no longer attack them when we want to and can no longer bully them in their own region.

Graham’s answer is consistent with what various American policy elites have said over the years about America’s enemies generally and Iran specifically: the true threat of nuclear proliferation is that it can deter American aggression.

The No 1 concern of American national security planners appears to be that countries may be able to prevent the US from attacking them at will, whether to change their regimes or achieve other objectives. In other words, Iranian nuclear weapons could be used to prevent wars – ones started by the US – and that, above all, is what we must fear.” [emphasis added]

Yes, Greenwald is suggesting that an Iranian nuclear bomb could actually serve to prevent wars.

Such political calculus, however, completely ignores the fact that – far from wanting to avoid war – the Iranians would likely use their nuclear umbrella to make resistance to their ongoing wars throughout the Middle East more difficult to deter and combat.

Iran’s foreign military adventures, aimed at exporting the Islamic revolution by arming, funding and training terrorists – and assisting in state terror – around the world (including the Taliban, Hezbollah, Hamas, Shia militias in Iraq, and even by sendingIranian forces to assist Bashar al-Assad’s bloody crackdown in Syria), would be emboldened if Western governments faced a nuclear armed Islamic Republic.

Greenwald,schooled by Noam Chomsky, believes that the Islamist rage which fuels terror attacks against US forces is understandable, and that the obsessive anti-Americanism represents an organic reaction to their victimhood.

Indeed, Greenwald perfectly represents the anti-American left, those who mock Americans for their love of country, and their belief that they live in a vibrant and prosperous democracy, while convincing their fellow citizens that the US is, in fact, one of the worst violators of human rights at home and around the globe.

Critics such as Greenwald arrogantly declare America’s every fault and misstep as proof that she is not the singlemost powerful force for freedom.

However, don’t be tempted by his faux-progressive, completely ahistorical revisionism.

Though, to their credit, Americans are indeed prone to self-criticism, as realists they need to acknowledge that their country’s faults are small in comparison to her contributions. Pride in America is indeed well founded.

While protest is clearly consistent with patriotism, it is unpatriotic to engage in gratuitous criticism completely divorced from any reasonable sense of balance or proportion.

It is not enough for such professional critics to love a mere “ideal” of America, or some lofty abstraction disconnected from the actual place Americans call home. True patriots love the land, the rises and falls, the real history of an entirely human people – the particular, imperfect citizens of the United States.

Real American patriots, and, indeed, all genuine liberals, would acknowledge and properly contextualize the reality of America’s faults, while cherishing (and fiercely defending) American values and enthusiastically celebrating the nation’s contributions to freedom and democracy in the world.

America is, of course, maddeningly imperfect, but, by any reasonable political standard, is also one of the least imperfect lands on earth.

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Iran a nation with a satellite nation and running various ‘colonial’ operations in Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Aza. The aggression Greenwald sees in the USA’s behaviour is in reality coming from Iran.
There will eventually be a blow back for Iran when it’s victims tire of the sub-fascist circus of death masquerading as religious insight.

I find it frightening how Glen throws Iranian gay’s under the bus for the sake of being in opposition to the US’s approach. The physical violence gays experience in Iran is similar to the narrative of African Americans up until the 1920s. Wether the citizen is strung up by the government executioners or lynched by a mob.

About Iraq:
We have to say that the war took place under false premises and the concept, if there had been one, of the Bush administration how to govern the country ( free market introduction, no functioning administration, no protection of civilists, schools, mueseums etc., forbiding unions, no curfew, paramilitary firms, no complete occupation and demilitarisation) was desastrous except for the Curds.
There was no media focus on the mass graves of Sadddam, the excavations, no public juristic or mediatory council, no mass education on rights for a population living under a dictatorial regime with all the disinformation about the world they live in.
The evolving civil war, the ethnic cleansing were partly due to these grave shortcomings, partly the consequence of this deadly tyranny, partly produced by Iran and Saudi-Arabia.
So the left had some basics for rightfully critise thei r government, but they spiralled away, far away, into conspiracy and lunatic accusations instead rationally nailing the Bushies down for their crying incompetence.

That’s right Glenn, go ahead and trash the country that gives you the right to do so without fear of winding up in prison or dead. Give succor to an aggressive human rights basket case pursuing a bomb to make their delusions of grandeur into the world’s next big nightmare come true, and then give yourself an award for your “bravery.” Tell us, Glenn, which other countries should get nuclear weapons so the U.S. can’t attack them. All of them, I would imagine. Schmuck.

Jeff – re: “go ahead and trash the country that gives you the right to do so without fear of winding up in prison or dead.” – I just want to check your logic, maybe I’m being a little slow. You’re saying: “You’re allowed to criticise your government, so you shouldn’t criticise your government.” Is that right? You’re saying: “Let’s celebrate our right to criticise our government without fear of punishment – a vital aspect of democracy – by NOT criticising our government.” Am I following you? Correct me if I’m wrong.

Yes you are wrong and not only wrong but make a total fool of yourself. Jeff said that GG criticises his government, asserts that it is not democratic and criticising it he needs some kind of bravery. At the same time he is applauding regimes where this kind of criticism and his sexual orientation would put him on the gallows in no time.

You are wrong. Your characterization of my comment is selective, shallow, and, I suspect, colored by your ideological moorings.
You may have noticed that my comment consisted of a string of sentences. This is called a “paragraph,” i.e., related sentences grouped together by a common theme. If you read the entire paragraph for meaning (and understand it), you’ll see that I’m not challenging GG’s right to exercise his right, but rather challenging the hypocritical and conspiratorial beliefs that animate him.